Payrolls jumped by 200,000 in December, a big increase from November’s 120,000 gain and October’s 100,000 addition. Economists had projected an increase of 150,000 jobs for the month. So why aren’t U.S. stocks markets up strongly this morning?
For the week that ended December 31 the number of people filing new claims for unemployment dropped to 372,000. That was a significant decline from the 387,000 initial claims filed in the week ended December 24.
New claims for unemployment fell by 4,000 to 364,000, the lowest level since April 2008. But third quarter GDP growth gets revised down to 1.8% from 2.0%
Today the U.S. Department of Labor announced that initial claims for unemployment fell to 366,000 for the week ended December 10. That was a significant drop from 385,000 in the week ended December 3 and was the lowest initial claims number since May 2008.
The official unemployment rate for November released this morning showed a huge drop to 8.6% from 9%, but I think we can basically ignore that number since it was a result of a big 300,000 drop in the labor force and an increase in seasonal (that is, temporary) jobs for the holiday season.
The U.S. economy added slightly fewer jobs—80,000 versus expectations of 85,000—in October than economists had projected. But revisions to the September data show the economy added 158,000 that month instead of the 103,000 reported.
Once you do all the adding and subtracting that the jobs numbers always require, the report this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is just about what everyone was expecting.
The German DAX Index closed up 4.91% today and the French CAC 40 Index closed up 4.33% on “news” that European Union officials were working on a plan to boost bank capital. That’s worth 5%? Only when the technical indicators are flashing “over-sold.”
Initial claims for unemployment fell to 409,000 for the week ended on August 27 from 421,000 the week before. Although this isn’t as big a drop as economists were expecting, it’s probably enough to indicate that the unemployment rate will remain steady in tomorrow’s report.
